The SEEP Network

Global Learning Exchange

SEEP documents and gathers the experience of practitioners through its Working Groups, made-up of self-selected individuals, they serve as the vehicle for SEEP members to engage in participatory research, applied learning, documentation, and training on a particular topic. Some of the working groups include: Poverty Outreach Working Group, Social Performance Working Group, Consumer Protection Working Group, and Market Facilitation Initiative. The research accumulated through the Working Groups is disseminated via various publications, training tools, as well as SEEP Communities of Practice. Each Community of Practice provides practitioners an opportunity to collaborate on particular areas of shared interest while ensuring cross-collaboration between Communities where priorities or programs overlap and align. Currently there are three overlapping Communities of Practice: Financial Services, Enterprise Development, and Associations along with many cross-cutting initiatives.^[4]

The Practitioner Learning Program (PLP)

PLP was developed by the SEEP Network to engage practitioners in a collaborative learning process to document and share findings and help identify effective and replicable practices and innovations. The PLP is a process oriented program rather than an output oriented program as it emphasizes on the lateral learning opposed to producing documents or deliverables. The outputs produced are practically written, as peer-to-peer “how-to” guides, technical notes, case studies, and even a periodic newsletter to maximize their effectiveness with practitioners and the industry at large. The PLP’s comparative advantage – practicing locally, sharing globally – is based on working with on-the-ground organizations to test strategies in institutional settings common to many practitioners. Furthermore, this model of “learning by doing” has the added benefit of more institutionalized knowledge, because when practitioners learn from their own experiences, mistakes and discoveries, the learning itself is often more sustainable.

Value Initiative

The Value Initiative advances urban value-chain development to help millions of people work their way out of poverty. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Value Initiative is in the third of four years of learning with urban value-chain development program partners in India, Kenya, Jamaica, and Indonesia. The project includes:

• an on-line community, Enterprise Development Exchange, where practitioners can post their profile, opportunities and documents, and participate in on-line conferences;
• the “Global Enterprise Development Network,” which is an open, online platform on the Enterprise Development Exchange to bring together different stakeholders to advance sustainable enterprise development; and
• two Practitioner Learning Programs (PLP) on “urban Value Chain Development (uVCD)” and “Business Planning for Sustainability and Scale-up.”

The Value Initiative and partner ACCESS Development Services of India produced a 2009 video baseline survey of the initial stages of the ACCESS JJADE project, which supports artisans and microenterprises from the Jaipur jewelry industry with training and services to improve their income and quality of life.

The SEEP Annual Conference

The Annual Conference attracts a broad cross-section of key players in microenterprise and microfinance industries including NGOs, private sector firms, foundations, investment funds, and bilateral agencies. In 2009, more than 500 people representing 225 organizations and 56 countries participated. The SEEP Annual Conference consists not only of traditional plenary sessions, but also of workshops, two-days skill-building trainings, and Global Network Summit.^[5][6][7]